Gastvortrag von Prof. Sofia Näsström (Universität Uppsala)

Am 15. November ist Prof. Sofia Näsström von der Universität Uppsala in Darmstadt zu Gast. Ihr Vortrag, der den Titel „How do democracies die? A reappraisal“ trägt und sich mit dem Verhältnis von Demokratie als Geist der Emanzipation und Phänomenen des democratic backsliding befasst, findet um 18.00 Uhr im Raum S313/215 statt. Gäste sind herzlich willkommen, eine vorherige Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich.

Sofia Näsström ist Professorin für politische Theorie an der Universität Uppsala. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte umfassen Fragen von Staat, Legitimität, Repräsentation und Prekarität. Ihre bevorstehende Monographie trägt den Titel 'Democracy and the Social Question: Sharing Uncertainty in Uncertain Times'. Im Folgenden findet sich eine englischsprachige Kurzbeschreibung des Vortrags.

Do democracies die at the hands of the people or their elected leaders? Does it happen quickly or slowly? These questions are today at the forefront of many debates on democratic backsliding, i.e. the sliding back of democracy into autocracy. Still, while we have good reasons to worry about the resurgence of autocracy in the world, these worries are often attributable to distorted beliefs about what democracy is. So what is democracy?

In this talk, I will argue that democracy is not reducible to procedures, like elections. Nor is it a doctrine of popular sovereignty. It is a spirit, in the sense that Montesquieu understands it in his classical work The Spirit of the Laws. More specifically, and based on a recent published book (Näsström, The Spirit of Democracy, OUP 2021) I will argue that it is a spirit of emancipation.

The talk unfolds in three steps. First, I clarify what I mean by democracy as a spirit of emancipation. Second, I explain how this interpretation differs from the two conventional readings of democracy just mentioned, as procedure and popular sovereignty respectively. Finally, I ask how this difference plays out in the analysis of democratic backsliding. What can we see or do now that we could not see or do before?